Transfer

When I feel your mood on me, indigo,
I sip the wound
Slowly
Through my yellow eyes.
I cannot begin to imagine
Your strange faults
And grooves.

Raw bats swoop through
The dusty hollow of your
Mind and mine.
Slapping words making
Faint music.

“Sick and tired, ma’am?”
[“WRONG,” screaming
Screeching
Agentless.]
Sour notes, rarely tasteful.
Shores of sharp
Sand weaving into
Our fearing parts.

I do not care.
I do not care.
I do not care.

Away

Having a wine glass on the way to the doctors office
I notice the pain of
Focus.
It is a tarnished glass
Messy with specs
Trickling down my mediocre
Throat.
Melancholic music is covered up till
Many men are singing.
Liven my mood, crank it down to the
Synpases.
Service trucks line my street because dollars
Mean
Convience.
Sorry distrust, with no ability to exist independently from
Them. All
Those gates, rolling inward, outward
Smartless.
Can we frolick a park, smutty with poop
and dogs?
Will you take me, authentically, away to way.

Lessons learned...

In reverse order,

1. 2& a half weeks of refrigeration make raspberries shrink to pea-size


2. the thousands of sheep off highway 5 make it beautiful


3. skiing without poles for a day is awkward


4. advertising was the most glamorous job in the '50s


5. even a CHP officer looking at my license believes I'm from Walnut Creek


6. never drive down a steep icy hill into a highway unless you want to crash


7. the cops in Incline Village allow 4 smooshed in a backseat, as long as we've got no warrants out for our arrest


8. if you're going to use the term "shit show" more than 100 times a day, beware of the mess you'll get into tomorrow


9. coiffeur is not pronounced coiff-wa, but this doesn't matter to some Americans


10. a junta is a coup, and I suck at Boulderdash


11. the Bay is peaceful
12. New Years Eve isn't the same without a partner in crime


13. it's crucial to organize your things when you're going to 5 different destinations unless you want to be called a "shit show" by your brother over & over again


14. spending time with ailing grandparents is the definition of precious


15. love of bicycle riding runs in my genes
16. preserving memories for those without memory is important to me
17. Canadian men's use of the term "buddy" and "oh yeah" makes me warm
18. fire and snow get right to my heart
19. friends make wreckless travel worthwhile
    

fl-yen

Bel Air

to

Rossland, Canada

to

Rancho Mirage

to

Phoenix

to

San Francisco

to

Incline Village

to

Oakland

to

Bel Air

Winter break::: I cannot wait to cuddle my loved ones

poopi poetry

record player, fresh squeeze
fabric flowers laced with age

couch feathers smushing my
cushionless butt

just me; hours upon hours of
me

popcorn devoured, vanilla roibos tea
fingers buttery

Rocky in white, on the floor
Desirous of a camera

Or a bosom like
yours

this american life
pandora thumbs up
& charlie rose urgency

One last night

in my bungalow

Jealous, like every other
sunday of peapods
Families with fresh babies
but all I contain
Is me.

Harsh

If you are perceived as harsh and want not to be perceived this way, how can one change?

Limiting words?

Filtering thoughts?

I believe the answer may be a revolutionary change in one's perceptions of all people and their idiosyncrasies.

Could I achieve this revolution?

How?

Hope-tober

A handful of months ago it seemed to me that Hope was a chill-worthy word. Every time the word Hope echoed through the media, goosebumps danced upon my skin. It may have been audacious, but people were banning together around this most powerful and Pandoraic word.

Since then, debates and hate, apathy and passion, mud and guts have smudged and scraped the Hope campaign. Today I was at Wendy's Tortas in East L.A., down the street from Gates Elementary where I'm stationed as a "pre-service teacher." This eatery seems to take pride in nearly pristine white tables, a glass-case displaying candy-bars and granola, and their large, flat screen T.V. While eating my lunch a group of four men were engaged in Spanish Language TV: a Jerry Springer-like show, the news in which a story of a mother drowning her baby and a Latino man getting beaten up by the cops were head lining, and Barack Obama speaking at a convention.

I ended up starting a conversation with Wendy's grandpa, the owner, about who he hopes will become president of the country. I decided to ask him who he planned to vote for. His response was, "I'm not enabled the right to vote."

"If you were, who would you choose?"

"Obama, I would vote for Obama. But I'm afraid. I'm afraid if he gets elected someone might shoot him. Were you around here during the L.A. riots? If Obama were killed, the Blacks would be affected. The L.A. riots were bad, people stealing and breaking everything. That could happen again. It would happen again."

I nodded my head while listening to this man's fears about the future of our country and his community, thinking now how Obama's campaign of having the "audacity to hope" responds to this very world-view. I walked on down the sidewalk, passing the neighbors' eviction notice, some graffiti, and a pungent smell coming from a dumpster, to the colorful school yard of Gates.

Once in class it happened that the curriculum for the day was to read two newly published children's books; one entitled "My Dad, John McCain," the other "Barack." Both books spoke of the protaganists' struggles to develop their identities, and their will to serve America. Yet while "McCain" focused on being one deserving man in a line of soldier men, "Barack" focused on having many places to call home, and all of them contributing to feelings of struggle and hope.

It was incredible how powerful these books seemed. I can only imagine reading them to a class of American youth, empowering these students to devote a critical eye to each planned page. By the time I am through being immersed in this intense educational community of hopeful justice for all, I hope to be teaching in a classroom that makes strides, in part because of me and my hope, and in part because they have a genuine African American leading their world.